Kudzu: 'Vine that ate the South' is also good eating

Jeanne Price has learned to love the wildy invasive kudzu vines that blanket so much of the South.

That's because the honeybees she keeps at a Bostic, N.C., farm can't resist the sweet purple kudzu blooms that fill the air with an aroma similar to that of grape Kool-Aid each August.

And Price can't resist the delicately perfumed honey they make from those blossoms, harvesting 50 gallons of it a season.

Of course, that honey comes with a price.

"It's not my favorite plant," Price says of kudzu. "If I don't check my bees for a week, it will cover the hives."

Called by some the "vine that ate the South," kudzu is the bane of the South, covering more than 7 million acres from the Carolinas to Texas and costing $500 million a year to control. And not all that successfully, at that.

But some people don't fight kudzu. They eat it.

"It is perfectly valid as a food source," says Regina Hines, a fiber artist in Ball Ground, Ga. "In the springtime, I like to gather the little shoots, and I will saute them with onions and mushrooms. They taste almost like snow peas."

Related to peas, the climbing perennial was introduced to the South during the 1930s, when the government hired workers to plant it for erosion control. The government paid farmers as much as $8 an acre to plant fields of the vine.

But when the vine began to smother their crops, farmers balked. Soon, the vines were choking 100-foot-tall trees, pulling down telephone poles, clogging train tracks and covering parked cars.

Since 1953, when the government removed kudzu from its list of recommended cover crops, landowners and scientists have struggled to control it. But kudzu can take years to successfully treat with herbicide. Its roots can run 10 feet deep.

Appalled by how much the government spends fighting kudzu, Juanitta Baldwin, who wrote the cookbook "Kudzu Cuisine," started looking for culinary solutions to the problem about 10 years ago after leaving a civilian Navy job.

"Kudzu is a hidden goldmine," says Baldwin, whose book includes innovative recipes for kudzu, including breads and jellies. "I think someday somebody will get rich from it."

Nancy Basket, a part-Cherokee artist and basket maker in Walhalla, S.C., may not be getting rich off kudzu, but she does enjoy eating it. She says her heritage prompted her to treat kudzu with respect, rather than as a menace.

Now she hosts kudzu luncheons where guests feast on kudzu quiche with a rice crust or kudzu pasta.

"People just don't know how to use it," she says. "We need to use something in our back yard instead of making fun of it and calling it names."

In much of the South, kudzu hibernates in winter. The tender springtime shoots that pop up in April and May are a great substitute for spinach in salads and quiches, Baldwin says. She prefers young shoots over tougher, full-grown leaves, and she waits for the August blooms to make her sweet-smelling jelly.

Cooking with kudzu is just like using other hardy greens, except the leaves wilt quickly, and it's a pick-your-own process, Baldwin says. "Just don't pick from roadsides that have been sprayed. Pick from a patch that's away from everything," she says.

Kudzu also has become popular in natural foods stores, where the root is sold for about $2 an ounce dried and pulverized to be used similar to cornstarch to thicken soups, sauces and puddings. Foods also can be coated in it for frying.

"The Southerners got it wrong," says William Shurtleff, co-author of "The Book of Kudzu: A Culinary and Healing Guide." "There's a movement to see kudzu not as a menace but as a useful plant."

Often sold under the Japanese name "kuzu," kudzu root powder also has a following for its reputed medicinal benefits. Even Martha Stewart lists kudzu root as a "hangover helper" on her Web site.

Those who eat kudzu leaves - which are high in fiber and protein - liken the taste to tofu, which takes on the flavor of whatever it is cooked with.

But James Miller, a research ecologist with the U.S. Forest Service at Auburn University in Auburn, Ala., doesn't see kudzu elbowing out spinach or cornstarch any time soon. It's just too hard to harvest the thick vines and heavy roots, he says.

"We have many kudzu promoters," Miller says. "But I don't think anybody is going to go out and select kudzu over, say, catfish to batter and fry."

Except for Edith and Henry Edwards, that is. The Rutherfordton, N.C., couple have been eating kudzu for decades. They began feeding it to their cows 45 years ago and decided to try it themselves.

Edith Edwards - who is listed in the phone book by her nickname, "the Kudzu Queen of North Carolina" - credits the plant with her good health. She's been drinking a teaspoon of kudzu root powder in a nightly tonic for 25 years.

"I tell the women they can chew it like the cows if they like, and I mean this seriously," the 80-year-old says. "People say, 'Edith, how do you keep so young-looking?' and I say, Well, I eat kudzu.'"